I am mindful
that this is both the First Sunday Lent and Outreach Sunday, and so I will be
more Homily than sermon focused. That is
not to say that the written sermon, when finally published, may not be normal
length after feedback from those of us gathered here today. Speaking of which, I am doubly glad to see
y’all here. First, I am glad your boats
all worked after a season of idleness.
We laugh a bit, but many of you know the water is ridiculously high
around here after all that rain the last couple days. Keep the folks dealing with flooding in your
prayers. The other reason, of course, is
the start of daylight savings. I know how
hard it is to get up today and make it to church on time. So, thank you for taking your bounden duty
and service seriously!
If I was a
homily namer and marketer, I’d probably call today typological and
trusting. The t-words keep it
alliterative and point us to the theme behind our readings. But the types and shadows serve another
purpose. They point us to the reasons of
why we should be in the business of trusting God, even when the world around us
seems to be falling apart or going to hell in a handbasket or whatever over
metaphorical phrase we like to use.
Our OT reading
today takes place during Moses’ last day with the people of Israel. Some will say it was his last day on earth,
but that is just guessing. Moses is
forbidden by God from leading Israel into the Promised Land because of his sin,
his failure to trust God. Before he
exits the stage we call life, though, Moses gives a number of instructive and
exhortative speeches. This one is about
feast of the First Fruits. Y’all can
read it well enough, but it was a significant event in the life of Israel. Before the battles that will be fought and
the division of the Land, Israel is being instructed by their leader of their
need to remember that it is God who has done all this for them. In fact, God’s grace is so prevalent that
they are the inheritors of promises not made to them, but rather their
spiritual ancestors, by the Lord.
At the first
harvest, faithful Hebrews were required to bring a tenth of their offering to
the priests in the camp, and later to the Temple. There, the ritual described here was to take
place. The one offering the tithe to God
declared publicly their relationship to
Abraham and Jacob, their cultural identity with being on the margins and later
enslaved, their growth and oppression, their cry to the Lord, His faithfulness,
and His deliverance. Every time one of
the people brought their feast of first fruits to the priests, this liturgy was
to be enacted. Every Hebrew, or later
so-called God-fearers, was called by God to remind themselves that this
harvest, this bounty, was made possible only through the saving grace of
God. Nothing the individual member of
Israel did had caused this abundance to occur.
Then, of
course, the first fruit tithe was to be shared with the Levites, who had no
inheritance apart from what their brothers and sisters, cousins in reality,
shared with them, and with the resident aliens, those who lived among them but
had no inheritance. Can you imagine the
display? It would make our Thanksgiving
celebrations look pitiful by comparison as tithe after tithe was
presented. Spiritually, the lessons
would be a reminder of the need to trust God and of the abundant blessings
which He bestows upon those who do, in fact, trust Him. Plus, there would be a forced identification
with those on the margins in their own society.
Given the responses by Netenyahu the last couple days, one wonders if he
skips this part of the torah in his studies.
All of that
liturgy was to be done to remind people that Yahweh was trustworthy. When old man Abraham had a choice, trusting
God to give him and Sarah an heir, Abraham eventually trusted. When Abraham was called by God to sacrifice
the literal offspring of that promise, Abraham was willing to trust God. Similarly, though things seemed their
bleakest when the people of Israel were enslaved, God was faithful. Israel did not fight their way out. God fought their way out. Better still, as inheritors of the liturgy
described by Moses, the people would live on the side of possession of the
Land. For them to make their offerings
of fruit they did not sow and plantings they did not plant, their ancestors had
to defeat all the “ites” who possessed their inheritance.
We are
Episcopalians; we are liturgical. We, of
all modern Christians, should understand what’s happening in these
passages. Our work, our liturgy, is
identical to that of what Moses describes in the book of Deuteronomy. It is, to use my fancy t-word from the
pretend title, typological of what we do when we gather in worship, which
itself is typological of what is occurring the eternal presence of our
spiritual ancestors with God! We remind
ourselves that God bound Himself to Abraham because of Abraham’s faith. We remind ourselves that God’s fulfillment,
ultimate fulfilment of His oath to Abraham, is the coming and work of Jesus of
Nazareth. We remind ourselves that we
are oppressed. Oh, I know that seems a
weird thing to say in the blessed land of Brentwood in the blessed land of the
United States. Most in the world would
love our oppression, but we know we are oppressed by the consequences of our
sins. It may not be slavery like Israel
experienced under Egypt, but it is just as oppressive. Some of us suffer from disease. Some of us here may suffer from material
privation, which seems even more burdensome when we remind ourselves that most
of us are well blessed materially. Some
of us are oppressed because of failed or broken relationships. We are oppressed, in short, by sin.
Oh, I understand
it is not a way that we think outside of Lent.
When I talk enslavement, some of you question whether people really are
enslaved. I mean, there are no chains,
no collars, no real bindings. But the
threat of death is all too real. Similarly,
what does it mean to be oppressed by sin.
The short answer, of course, is that sin binds us in ways we do not
spend much time contemplating. Our
ultimate bind, our ultimate chain is death.
Know anybody who is excited to face death? Unless they are in great pain or mentally
ill, probably not. Most of us fear it,
or at least do our best to avoid it.
Heck, I am a parish priest in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and
Apostolic Church, to use the set apart language of ordination. As many of you remark, I really seem to
believe the things I preach. I am
certain that just as God raised Jesus on that glorious Easter morning, He will
raise me after my death. Yet, y’all will
never catch me playing hopscotch on I-65!
And so, like
our spiritual ancestors, we gather in liturgy to remind ourselves that we are
not citizens of this country or this world.
Our citizenship is of the place of our Father in heaven. We remind ourselves that we, too, are small
in number. We remind ourselves that we
are oppressed by our sins and the sins of others. We cry to the Lord for deliverance. And we remind ourselves that, just as He has
delivered His sons and daughters countless times in the past, so will He
deliver us in His good time.
Doubters and
cynics among us are probably raising the “But you really don’t know.” And, to an extent, they have a point. Do we know?
Of course not. It is, after all,
faith. They question that doubters and
cynics deal with really, though, is the question of trust. How can you or I trust that what we read is
true? How can you or I claim to be
reasonable and rational and yet believe something so outside the bounds of
modern knowledge is true? How can you
and I and even them believe something and not later be found to be fools? I see a couple nods.
Again, I am
trying to be brief, and I gather there can be lots and lots of unpacking this
week in conversations, but think back to the Garden. What was the sin? Upon what did Satan prey when convincing Adam
and Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? I heard it.
Say it louder. Trust! That’s right.
How do you know God can be trusted? Both doubted, and our relationship with God
was terribly distorted.
Look to our
Gospel reading today. Does Jesus know
His purpose? Yes. Does Satan know His purpose? Yes.
So what is the temptation really about?
Trust. Who has been leading Jesus
in the wilderness without food?
God. Who has promised Jesus
authority and glory if He walks the path in obedience to which He has been
called? Jesus. Who has been asked to place all His trust in
the Father, undoing the sin of Adam and Eve so long ago? Jesus.
All these temptations, described by most commentators as messianic, are
questions of trust for Jesus.
I know we
spend a great deal of time talking about Jesus’ divinity, especially during the
seasons of Christmas and Epiphany, but now we have switched seasons. Now, it is appropriate to change our focus a
bit. I am glad that Jesus was God
incarnate, but I am equally as glad that He was and is fully human. How much more relatable does His humanity
seem to us? At Christmas, I reminded us
of birth stories, and it caused a bit of buzz as folks around here shared their
own. Similarly, look at the temptations
face by Jesus. How much more should we
be comforted by the fact that our judge understands the pulls and strains we
face! If you fasted Wednesday, how easy
was it? Maybe you failed. Maybe it was not as easy as you thought. The One who stands in judgment of you,
though, knows what it is like.
Look at the
offer of power and authority. Who does
not crave those things and desires to avoid death at all cost? Satan is offering Jesus an opportunity to
avoid the pain and suffering of the Cross.
Can you imagine THAT temptation?
Yet Jesus trusts the Father’s plan and walks the path He agreed to
walk. Make no mistake, He will be
hurt. Those He comes to save will betray
Him, mock Him, and shout “Crucify Him!”
Those for whom He came will, at the very end, mock His death for their
sakes, and still He wills Himself to obey the Father even to death. Can you imagine the physical, emotional, and
spiritual toll? And He sits in judgment
of us. That’s why we remind ourselves in
the comfortable words that He died for everyone who would call Him Lord.
Even the temptation
to trust God to send the angels to prevent His death is instructive for
us. As much as you and I like to avoid
pain, how much more do we work to avoid serious pain and death? God, of course, has promised that He will
command angels to protect and bear His Son.
In essence, Satan is asking Jesus How
do You know You really are the Son and that He really loves You? Messianic temptations, indeed. Jesus has to be so secure in His identity
that He trusts unfailingly in His Father.
He is willing to face the doubt of Satan and of those who stand at the
foot of the Cross saying “If You are the Son of God, come down” knowing that,
if He proves to us who He is, He becomes unable to save us! If He saves Himself, we are condemned. Ah, the weight of glory seems a bit more
oppressive now than you first thought, does it not?
My guess, of
course, is that those among us who are serious about their sins understand the
oppressive weight of glory. Oh, our
failures in light of temptation does not damn all of creation like Christ’s
failures would in light of His. But our
failures, our sins, do impact others. We
talked a few moments ago about how we are bound by our sins and the
consequences of the sins of others.
Sometimes the oppression is more obvious than at other times, but we
know their weight. How many of us have
experienced or been impacted by broken relationships? Millennials seem to live under it as their
parents and grandparents have worked through the era of no fault divorce only
to prove to them it’s better not to marry in the first place. How many of us were so touched by material
privation that we forget the lesson imparted by the liturgy of the First
Fruits, that we are merely stewards of God with respect to our
possessions? How many of us have areas
where we have convinced ourselves that God has ceded us authority, much like He
did Bruce in a few blocks around Buffalo?
How many of us have thorns like Paul, where God does not pull the thorn
out or get the monkey off our backs with respect to addictions, only to find
ourselves judging ourselves or others for that seeming lack of grace? All of us have those dark, shadowy areas
where we think God is incapable, or we are more capable, of exercising power
and discernment.
Where is the
Gospel in all this? In a sense, it is in
the words of Paul to the Romans. If you
confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God
raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Salvation, grafting ourselves into the people of God, is really
mercifully simple. There’s no litmus
test to be passed. There is no final
exam, apart from this confession and belief in life. Peter’s not going to be standing there waiting
on us with a blue book and choice between essay or multiple choice quizzes. Peter will not be there with a clipboard of
our sins saying “Brian, you were tempted by this sin x times too many. Sorry, there’s no room for you here.” What saves us is that God’s Anointed, Jesus
of Nazareth, trusted the Father. Even
though we fail and failed, still Jesus trusted.
And because of that trust, and our faith in Jesus, you and I get the
benefits of His passion and Resurrection.
Wait, that sounds familiar, almost like a part of our liturgy, which
points us to God and His worthiness. . . .
The Gospel is,
of course, summed up by St. Paul in the letter to the Romans today. But it is present in the liturgy of the First
Fruits, in Psalm 91, and even in the wilderness of temptation. In fact, it is even present in our own
liturgy, but more noticeable in the liturgy of Lent. We remind ourselves each and every time we
gather that God alone is worthy to be trusted and that Jesus alone truly
trusted and that, one glorious day in the future, we will be recreated with new
minds, new bodies, and new everythings that help veil us from the love of our Father
in heaven and allow us to see Him clearly, hear Him clearly, and understand Him
truly.
Of course,
like Abraham our earthly father, we are still wandering Arameans. We will leave this service and head back out
into our own wildernesses to do the work He has given us to do and to resist
the temptations of the world and of its current ruler. What better way to prepare us than to remind
us, both in study and worship, of the trustworthiness of God, and of the source
of strength and hope that will help get us through our own temptations. Better still, when next we gather, be it
Wednesday or Sunday or some other day, how much more adoring might we be
knowing that the One to whom we pray for forgiveness, has walked a path not
dissimilar to our own. To use the language
of our liturgy, this season: To Christ our Lord, who loves us, and washed us in
His own blood, and made us a kingdom of priests to serve His God and Father, to
Him be glory in the Church evermore.
Through Him let us offer continually the sacrifice of praise, which is
our bounden duty and service, and with faith in Him, come boldly before the
throne of grace.
Amen!
Brian†
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